
Former Ubisoft designer and creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil Michel Ancel has lifted the lid on part of Beyond Good & Evil 2's troubled development.
In an interview with French outlet Superpouvoir (via VGC), the ex-Ubisoft employee, who left in 2020 to work at a wildlife sanctuary, Ancel said "Passion is a fabulous energy, but it can also lead to clashes between enthusiasts. On Beyond Good & Evil 2, for example, there were too many problems between managers."
Ancel highlights a handful of clashes and changes among the development team, including the art director who "wanted to redo everything over and over again", the game's director who apparently "wanted to make a generated dungeon game", which was the opposite of what Ancel wanted. Ancel was previously the director of the game, before he left Ubifost.

“In this type of situation, the teams are thrown around and don’t even know who’s in charge and who’s making the decisions," Ancel continues, saying that, in his eyes "The producer is supposed to bring order to the situation, but that didn’t happen."
He tells Superpouvoir that Yves Guillemot, co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Ubisoft, had to come down to the Montpellier studio "to get things back on track" but that wasn't enough, and the current game director "continued in his stubbornness." He also wishes he'd spoken out more, and said "Beyond Good & Evil 2 is the one game where I don’t think I’ve ever questioned a decision. I’d be delighted to discuss this with any detractors."
While he puts the development issues down to "passionate managers not getting along", he says that he believes that most of the people mentioned "were dismissed" and a new balance has been found with new managers.
"There wasn’t just one big villain, but a whole series of key issues that remained unresolved at management level, including myself." Ancel concludes, "I have my share of responsibility and I should have defended the project better, been more present and more conciliatory with the staff."
At the time of Ancel's departure, French newspaper Libération published a report that accused the creator of toxic leadership on Beyond Good & Evil 2. Ancel acknowledged the report and claimed he was working with investigators but strongly denied the accusations. This also happened months after allegations of abuse, harassment, and sexual misconduct — five former executives were later arrested in 2023.
Despite leaving Ubisoft over four years ago, Michel Ancel has since reunited with the developer and is working alongside the Montpellier-based studio on a new Rayman project.
Of course, this is all happening amongst even more turmoil for Ubisoft, which includes discussions with Tencent on buyout terms following a poor year for profits.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 does indeed exist, readers — Ubisoft reconfirmed this earlier in the year following the release of Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition, an enhanced release of the cult GameCube game. We don't know what platforms the game will come to, or if it's even Nintendo-bound, but at this rate, we're surely looking at the next generation.
Do you think we'll see Beyond Good & Evil 2 in the next year? Share your thoughts below.
[source superpouvoir.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 41
This game is never coming out.
About what you’d expect but good to hear it confirmed anyway.
“The game's director who apparently "wanted to make a generated dungeon game" I guess this is where the multiplayer focus came from if we assume the director was inspired by Warframe and its procedurally generated levels.
Just give the IP to a different developer at this stage. People want an action-adventure sequel in the same vein as the original. There’s no need to reinvent it as some live service muck.
Just abandon the project already.
This is just embarrassing.
Trouble development, the creator passed away, only a remastered made the release, the DEI embracement, UbiSoft is a scummy company now = All red flags that this game will never come out or exist which is for the best anyways. Even if it does comes out it won't be made with the same vision the original creator had for it but only for profit of nickel and diming the consumers.
Man looked really promising. Hope it gets going.
I don't think that too much people are holding their breath for this sequel anyway.
Ubisoft is a complete mess right now, I will be surprised if this game ever sees the light of day.
My prediction for this game is that when it does "eventually" come out it's just going to be another Duke Nukem Forever situation. All be it much worse considering the fact this a ubisoft game that were talking about here and there recently released games are kinda hit and miss 😕....
Ima just replay the original.
Ubisoft will have likely gone under by the time this is anywhere near finished. There's no way in hell they'll see a return on investment on this game either way.
@AllBLK This is just another nail in the coffin for Ubisoft.
That whole company is a complete mismanaged shambles right now.
Mass lay-offs, projects canceled left and right and anything that is still left in development is in a complete mess as well.
What's more likely to come out in our lifetime: Beyond Good & Evil 2 or Half-Life 3?
@N00BiSH WWIII…
Even if they somehow stick this landing there's no way they'll ever be able to match the runaway hype that game has gotten over the years. Funny thing is that ridiculous hype is surely why they'll never let this IP go no matter how bad their progress skews. It's like the last thing this company has going for it.
at this point this project feels like part of a money laundering scheme. lol
The annoying thing about this is they probably could've just made Beyond Good and Evil 2...like...another game like the first game. And it obviously would've come out already. And probably would've been better than your average Ubisoft game at least.
Like I get this isn't just typical Ubisoft AAA nonsense, Michel Ancel wanted to make Beyond Good and Evil this massive space game or whatever but like dude...you're trying to make a super massive AAA game as a follow up to one cult classic from 2003 that is shorter than your average Zelda game at the time. Could you not have at least made another game before you made a jump that ridiculous. This would be like if TOTK was the next Zelda game after OOT, like cmon...
Third paragraph. "Ubisoft" not "Ubifost"
I stopped caring about this game ten years ago. I stopped wanting this game when I saw the trailer 7 years ago. At this point I want them to retroactively unrelease the original and I am willing to lose at least some portion of my soul in a black magic ritual to make it happen if necessary.
Please cancel it. We don't want this.
Those trailers with f-bombing monkeys were horrible.
We love the original and a sequel with that magic would have been great, but this is not it. We don't want it, we won't buy it. We are at peace with our loss.
@AllBLK I agree. Also never coming out: Elder Scrolls 6. GTA 6 on the other hand I think will eventually release.
I'm kinda glad this iteration of BG&E won't ever see the light of day. No thanks to this slimeball. So why give press coverage to someone with his reputation? Bad enough what he did with the IP to this weird Pulp Fiction version. And then it comes out that he was scum at Ubisoft?
I remember when they showed that CG trailer all those years ago. Everyone was so hyped. And I was like "They didn't show any gameplay." People gotta learn that a CG trailer means they don't have anything real to show.
Is this a record for a game stuck in development hell?
Why bother. Even in the infinitesimally small chance this is ever released it won’t be anything close to the intended vision the original developers and fans of the first game had. I don’t understand why Ubisoft don’t give up on this with all their money problems.
Loving the original I would love to see this potentionally great new installment arrive at one point, but at what price we should perhaps wonder, together.
Best of wisdom and good health to the people (especially the devs) working on this.
Seems to me that they were attempting to shoehorn NFTs into the game, with all the talk of players owning art etc. I wonder what that art would be worth today if the game got to launch a few years back with NFT integration?
@Rentaro well that was just a lovely comment. You alright, man.
This game's development is worse than Duke Nukem Forever.
I have lost just about all interest in this, and I know it's going to disappoint in the end. (Just like DNF)
I'm honestly convinced this game is just toast and never coming out... and I'm okay with that.
Ubisoft just doesn't know what to do with this series. Based on Jade and Pey'j's appearance in Captain Laserhawk, I'm pretty sure they don't even know who those characters are, otherwise we wouldn't have seen Jade in a dress or Pey'j giving a ridiculously awkward confession of love. I'd rather have an up and coming indie developer create a spiritual successor for this series, or have Ubisoft go under and have to sell their IPs to companies that will actually respect them.
No hope for this game or Ubisoft for that matter. The last trailer was terrible - capturing absolutely none of the magic from the original game - and every update since has just made me more more sure this game either won't release, or will be a disaster.
Beyond Good and Evil ...2?
So pretty much exactly what everyone was thinking. Horribly mismanaged project due to too many cooks being in the kitchen. And also of course the scope of the game being way too big.
You'll never catch me saying that 'games were better back then', I think the amount of high-quality video games coming out every year is higher than ever. But I could definitely do without the same piece of ***** slop adventure game coming out every year that fails to get even basic mechanics right like stealth and dialogue trees, stuff that was mastered 25+ years ago on more primitive hardware, it's pathetic.
At this point I predict this game will come out, be front and center for one weekly news cycle, then never be spoken about again. Same as what happened to The Last Guardian.
This game will be cancelled, especially in UBI's current state where they are losing money left and right already.
BGAE will be a bad game on release because of all the mess in development.
If BGAE releases, it will fail for the same reasons as Duke Nuke'm Forever.
UBI are also Sabotaging their sales by releasing new games exclusive on Epic Store, the most hated store ever on PC.
UBI are only releasing their games on Steam after they flopped everywhere else, and don't understand why no one on Steam are buying their old games...
That's the IQ of UBI's boss right there. LOL
And none of it sounds like what fans of the original wanted. Get rid of the monkey, get rid of the open world/galaxy. Just expand of the original's mechanics and story and locations and resolve that cliff-hanger!
Lol that gameplay video vs the cgi game trailer video……..I can see why people get so let down.
#100% gameplay trailers is the only way to go.
Sounds doomed
And if it isn't... Get rid of the Chav monkey.
Find a rebellious personality people actually find endearing.
@LikelySatan It's called being nice... I appreciate this is a foreign planet to most people on the internet.
@Real_Obsi out of the mouths of babes...
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...